It is currently 11:55 p.m. – a full 85 minutes past the time I’m committed to being in bed each night. And yet I’m compelled to be awake just a smidge longer. 

Why? It could be some swirling thoughts left over in my head from a busy day, or the fact that sometimes the utter stillness of night is the only time I get to really collect my thoughts. 

But I’m thinking this late night session actually has deeper roots. In fact, I might trace it back to 1999. 

I was dating a guy in college who loaned me a CD set from a weekend sales seminar he’d just attended. And I never returned them (sorry Chris!). For literally years, those CDs were on a constant rotation in the one-disc slot of my green Jeep Wrangler, filling my head with big perspectives and deep learnings. Whether I was on a 5 minute commute to my job at Costco, trekking from my college town of Santa Barbara to my home town of San Bernardino, or roadtripping out to Burning Man, my fancy...